Fade
by Niggle
Summary: What if another one of those! Clark's fight with Eric in Leech had turned out differently? AU, ClarkChloe
1. Fade

Title: "Fade"  
Author: Niggle  
Genre: AU/Action/Romance  
Rating: R (for violence)  
Summary: What if (another one of those!) Clark's fight with Eric Summers in "Leech" had turned out differently?

He walked slowly up the stairs to his apartment, books in one hand, keys in the other, and mail in his teeth. Metal jangled against metal as he fumbled with the key chain, pushing up and in to coax the temperamental lock.

He shoved the door open and walked through, shutting it behind him with his foot. He threw the books on the sofa, and dropped the mail into his free hand, tossing the keys on the end table so that he could flip through the wad of envelopes.

_Phone, gas and electric, water, Discover...nothing that can't wait._

He crossed to the white Lucent answering machine on the table beneath the window and pressed "play". Chloe Sullivan's voice greeted the quiet room with her usual perk.

"Clark, it's me. I'm swinging by later to drop off the Frost notes. If you're home maybe we can start studying for the final. I'm thinking five o'clock? Well, bye."

He grinned at her choice of words and her tone of voice. She had more in mind than reviewing Dr. Lambert's critical analysis of "Home Burial". It hadn't taken long for their study dates to move from the Metropolis University Library to the relatively private environs of the "pad" (as his erstwhile roommate called it) that he shared with Pete.

After all those hours arguing over whether Beowulf or Odysseus was really more "heroic", discussing the pros and cons of iambic pentameter and wondering whether libel should be considered a capital crime, they had progressed to less...intellectual pursuits.

He glanced at his watch. Twenty minutes. Just enough time to shower off the sweat from the afternoon's inter-mural basketball match. He stripped off his t-shirt and headed for the bathroom.

He turned when he heard a thump behind him and visibly jumped at the sight of the dark clad figure crouching on his windowsill.

The windowsill of his fourth story window.

The figure slowly climbed the rest of the way into the small apartment and stood silently in a long leather coat, staring at him with gray-green eyes that made words stick in his throat. They were intense, but somehow familiar, looking at him in combined rage, fear, pain, but most of all: hatred. He backed up several steps and swallowed, wishing for the first time in years that his powers had not been taken that day on the dam. The man was shorter than Clark, but about the same age, with a narrow face and a mouth that seem twisted in a perpetual grimace. He was surprisingly muscular for someone with such a slender frame. His long fingers held a black box, a hand's width in length, and the look he gave Clark was pure murder.

"Nothing to say?" he spat after a time.

"I don't...who...?"

"You don't remember me, do you? Why should you? You just took my life and left me with your curse. I'm a walking corpse because of you. Do you know how many times I've tried to kill myself, because of _you_?" His voice shook with barely contained tears. Whether of pain or anger, it was impossible to tell. His voice sank to a whisper, his head tilted in pain. "All I want to do is die. And you're going to help me."

"What are you talking about?"

The man's eyes flashed and he jumped forward, impossibly fast, to grab Clark and hurl him twenty feet across the room. Spots exploded across his vision as his head collided with the wall. He felt something hot and wet on his back where the computer desk had gouged it as he fell. He managed to roll painfully onto his side just as the man lazily approached him and hauled him to his feet. With a growl, the intruder slammed his palm into Clark's bare chest, driving him back into the other wall. Clark staggered to his knees and the man grabbed his blood-matted hair and yanked his head back so that he could look in his eyes.

"Is this starting to feel familiar?" he snarled bitterly. "Probably not. You're probably not used to being on the receiving end."

Clark suddenly felt very cold.

"Eric?"

"Oh wow. I'm touched you remember my name."

"I thought you...you were back to normal after that night." The throbbing in his skull was making it very difficult to concentrate. Eric released him roughly, turned his back, and stalked to the other side of the room.

"I was. Just long enough to fool everyone. Even myself. But it started again after we moved to Central City. And it only got worse." He shook his head self-deprecatingly and held his hands up before his face, looking at them as if he had never seen them before. "I spent six years trying to figure this thing out. Six years of not knowing what it is or how bad it would get or what kind of a person it makes me. I've gone over that day a million times in my head. It took me a while to get it. It was so obvious when I finally put it together; I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner. Maybe intuitive leaps of logic come with the strength and invulnerability. Or maybe I'm not as dumb as my dad thought I was."

"Where is your dad?" Clark asked, instinct telling him he would not like the answer to that question.

"Let's just say he's not thinking much of anything these days," he replied with a truly ghastly smile. It disappeared quickly as he abruptly continued his tirade. "All those things you said, what you tried to tell me. I would have almost thought you were trying to help me, if I hadn't found out about how the meteorites work."

"I don't understand."

Eric whirled and grabbed him by the throat, shoving him brutally into the wall again. Clark gasped at the amplified pain in his head and the lack of air as his feet dangled uselessly several inches off the ground.

"_Don't_ play _games_ with me!" Eric screamed, trembling. Clark looked down at him, struggling to breathe. Eric held him there for several moments before wrenching his hand away to watch him fall to the floor, panting. "I know about the meteorites! You knew they would hurt me, that's how you stopped me. It didn't take much to make the connection: lightening, you, the rock. I did some checking. I've read your girlfriend's meteor theories. I persuaded certain people to look into it for me. Their results were pretty conclusive: the changes that the meteorites induce in normal people are a combination of circumstance and desire. You have to want it, on some level. And you wanted it! You wanted to get rid of what you had so you passed it on to me. And now I'm going to pass it back!"

Clark struggled to remain conscious as Eric shoved the black box in his pocket and dragged him down five flights of steps to the basement of the apartment building. The low-ceilinged room was littered with bits of furniture, clothing and papers. Years of disuse had left their mark, a thick layer of grime over the floor and walls. A single naked bulb burned wanly, dispelling little darkness. Eric walked straight to the dusty circuit breakers on the left. He then paused and looked back towards the stairs.

Footsteps. Someone was coming down. A five foot two someone with blond hair. Eric watched darkly, waiting.

"Chloe, don't!"

He caught the makeshift club effortlessly, snapping the wood of the two by four with careless ease before casually backhanding her across the floor, where she lay stunned. Clark was unable to break Eric's grip on his neck as the man ripped the metal casing from one of the electric panels and exposed the power lines. He opened the black box he had been carrying and removed a small green stone, grimacing as he felt its effects. He placed it in his palm as he grabbed Clark's hand, the rock digging into their flesh. He looked at Clark and smiled bitterly.

"Now it ends." He rammed both their fists through the fuse box to catch the line that carried the electricity for the entire building. Clark threw his head back and screamed.


	2. Disclosure

At first there was only the pain of the current slamming through his body. Then power, unbelievable, virtually limitless power, flooded through him in a torrent that threatened to consume him. He saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing, except for that sweet agony.

The instant he was able, he wrenched his arm from the metal casing and he and Eric crumpled to the floor, gasping. Immediately the stone in his hand sent sharp pains shooting through his arm and he hastily returned it to its protective lead container. Then Eric began to laugh.

"Have a nice life," he said, his voice giddy.

"Don't!" As fast he was, he wasn't fast enough. The semi-automatic Colt that Eric had taken from his coat fired cleanly, driving the bullet through his chin and into his brain. Clark watched the recoil, the puff of gunpowder, the path of bullet, helplessly. He drew back in horror as it exited the top of Eric's head, spraying everything around him with globs of blood and brain matter.

An unnatural stillness settled over the room. Clark could only sit and stare at Eric's glazed eyes.

"My God, Clark. Are you okay? Clark? Clark!"

He tore his gaze away from the corpse to regard Chloe, who knelt by him, trembling as she eyed the blood on his face and chest. He reached up and wiped some of it away. The skin beneath it was unbroken. He stared absently at the sticky red fluid on his fingers.

"Clark, what happened? Are you okay?" Her voice and hands trembled as she cupped his face in her hands and searched his eyes with her own. "I came early. When I saw him attacking you I thought…I called the police, but I had to do something…Clark, what's going on?"

He felt like he had just woken from a dream. It was like he had been asleep for six years, whiling away the hours in a pleasant fantasy that he was only now recognizing.

_You_ wanted _it!_

He turned and looked at her. Chloe. His Chloe. He had enjoyed the years he had spent with her, being just himself. He had almost tricked himself into pretending he was human. Now he would have to face it again, have to fight it. But she was still there, just as she had always been, right in front of him even when he was too dense to see it. Constant. He eyed the nasty-looking bump on her head.

"Come on, let's get you some ice," he said as he rose smoothly. The strength was back, the energy, but also the need for control. Always control. But he had lived with it before; he could live with it again.

"I'm fine," he said to her puzzled expression, trying to keep his voice steady. They both avoided looking at Eric, as if somehow they could erase the image from their memories. Even Chloe, stiff and aching from the vicious blow she had received, could not get away from the gruesome scene quickly enough. But Clark knew he would never forget the madness in Eric's eyes, or the sight of the bullet tunneling through his soft tissues.

_But for the grace of God..._

The police arrived a few minutes later to take over the building and sort out what had happened. Chloe held an ice pack to her head while they answered questions. The officer's look was sympathetic as Clark quietly detailed what had happened, leaving out the part about transferring alien powers and carefully skirting the mystery of the ruined circuit breaker. The story of a troubled former classmate breaking in and committing suicide was gradually but easily accepted. Slowly the activity died down, the coroner took away the body, the police closed their notebooks and left. Alone in his apartment, Clark and Chloe sat in a kind of stunned silence. The emptiness of the apartment seemed to hold itself around them, at once fragile and iron-strong.

"You want some coffee?" Clark asked after a while. It was the only thing he could think of to say.

Chloe shook her head and looked at him carefully. He seemed different. It was more than the shock of watching someone die, more than the emotional exhaustion of mentally replaying the day's events a thousand times, more than the emptiness that violence leaves in its wake. His eyes warned her that something significant had occurred, a change for which he had not been prepared. He did not look as if he could stand to spend the night alone.

There were questions, of course. She had catalogued them chronologically. Why had Eric come to Clark's apartment? What of the blood she had seen? What were they doing in the basement and what happened with the fuse box? She could have sworn she saw them both electrocuted.

"Eric seemed pretty messed up. I wonder what happened to him."

"He was just a kid," Clark said, his eyes staring sightlessly at the dying western light that was creeping across the carpet. "He didn't…he never got a chance. I wouldn't have wanted that for anybody…I wouldn't…"

Questions could wait. For the first time in her life, she put her curiosity on hold. He would tell her on his own time, when he could. She touched his neck and gently nudged his head down into her lap. He gratefully folded himself onto the couch and snuggled down into her warmth as she wrapped herself around him. She felt his muscles relax a little, though he still clutched the fabric of her shirt in one large fist. She saw him squeeze his eyes shut, as if to block the world out. She stroked his hair and touched her lips lightly to his face. After a time his breathing steadied as he drifted to sleep. She felt like Androcles, cuddling a lion. She only wished it were as simple as removing a thorn.

She stayed awake for a while, watching him, but eventually the night caught up to her and she slipped into sleep as well. When she woke, dawn was stealing through the curtains and breakfast sounds were coming from the kitchenette.

She was lying on the couch with a blanket over her. It was the blue woolen one that his mother had given him as a housewarming present. She crawled from under it and stood, yawning and blinking at the early hour. Clark was bustling about, cracking eggs into a skillet and rattling silverware around. His movements were tight with underlying tension, controlled. She walked over and took a place at the table.

"I thought you guys had a 'microwaveable only' rule here."

"It gets waived when we're trying to impress girls," he replied with a grin.

"Where is Pete?"

"I think her name is Wendy. They were going to the symphony last night."

"Ah." The easy smile on her face faded as an uncharacteristically long silence stretched between them. He seemed okay; he seemed normal. But she knew him too well to be fooled by how he seemed. He was too good at dissembling, at hiding what bothered him.

It hadn't always been that way. There had been a time when what was in his heart was written plainly on his face, but as the years passed she had become the only one who could always see what he was really thinking.

After a time the eggs were done and the toast popped up. Clark grabbed some plates and set everything out on the table with a sweet smile that was heartbreaking for the turmoil it hid. Chloe responded in kind while she inwardly searched for the right words. It never ceased to amaze her how different the simple process of stringing words together to make a sentence could seem depending on the circumstances. Give her a topic with a deadline and she was a regular wordsmith. Give her a hurting loved one and she forgot what a noun was. After some inner debate, she decided that, as usual, the direct approach was best.

"You can't pretend everything is normal," she said with a sad, humorless smile, trying to keep her voice from breaking as she plowed ahead. "You can't just push it down and hope it goes away."

He stopped chewing and looked her in the eyes, hearing what she had left unspoken, what she was offering him. He realized that he was in a precipitous place. What he did now could very well affect the rest of his life, of their lives. If he started to shutting her out, he might not be able to stop. Deception could only drive distance between them. But maybe that was as it should be. Maybe some people were meant to be alone. Didn't she deserve better than what he could give her? Didn't she deserve someone…human? Someone who could give her a normal life? He didn't know what his life would be like with his powers returned, but it sure as hell wasn't getting any simpler. Part of him screamed that it was selfish to drag her into that, to let his need for her override what was really best for her. Another part whispered that it was her decision to make. He wavered and wished with all this heart that things didn't have to be the way they were. But wishing didn't help anything. _Things happen as they happen. You can't change the past._

He swallowed hard and took the biggest emotional risk of his life. Over fried eggs and orange juice, he told the woman he loved his greatest secret.


	3. Part Three

She sat quietly after he had finished, when the words stopped coming, when there was nothing left to say. The food lay forgotten on the table, long cold. They spent a few moments in relative silence, with only the sound of Pete's basketball clock ticking and the distant rush of traffic on the street below.

Nothing could have prepared her for the look in those large, expressive eyes after she had pushed him, the blind fear that was almost panic, the moment of pure agonizing indecision before he started talking.

There were questions. She had felt like she wanted to ask questions, a hundred of them, but his voice had frozen her in the adamantine ice of revelation, so that she could only sit and watch as he laid his soul bare to her, as he handed his life over into her hands. It never occurred to her to doubt his words. She supposed it should have. But everything fit. And actually, his story inspired more credulity than some of the things she had told him.

He had spoken with his eyes on the table, as if something poisonous were being extracted from him and now his gaze was empty with the emotional drain. He sat as if awaiting judgment.

What do you say to something like that? What do you say when the love of your life reveals the secret he has guarded since childhood, a secret so dangerous that he fears to tell anyone, a secret that tore apart another's life and unexpectedly shattered his world after six years of thinking he'd never have to worry about it again? What do you say when the man you've been dating since high school tells you he isn't human? She didn't know. So she did what she had always done, what she had been doing since they were both kids: she looked at him, read what was in his heart and told him the truth as she saw it.

"I know what you're afraid of. Your afraid that I'll be mad at you for lying all this time, for not telling me right away. You're afraid that I won't want to be with you now that I know. You're afraid that you were wrong to tell me. You're afraid that Eric was right, that you are responsible for what happened to him, and that you'll wind up the same way. You're not and you won't." Her face broke into a sudden grin as she fought the tears that he refused to shed. "And I can't believe that you think I'm shallow enough to care about something as inconsequential as what planet you're from. God, Clark, what do you think I am, a specist?"

He attempted a weak smile at the joke, his eyes flooded with sudden hope, hope that was tinged with the tiniest bit of reserve, of fear that it might not be true. He was fifteen again; six years of emotional progress had been stripped away in an instant. All that he had found about himself, what he had learned, was gone. Everything had changed; his entire world had been turned upside down and inside out.

The kitchen table was small, barely big enough for three people. She reached across it and gripped his hand in her own. He looked at their clasped hands with the expression of one who fears that he will wake up at any moment and find it all a dream.

Chloe cursed herself as she felt hot tears rolling down her cheeks, then angrily gave in. If he wouldn't cry for himself than she would cry for him. He was looking at her tears in curiosity and alarm, so she quickly rose and closed the distance between them, calling his name as she did so. She clutched him as she had the night before, only more fiercely, and he slid his arms gently - so gently - around her, as if afraid she might break. With a start, she realized the truth of that fear.

"Clark, I love you."

The words didn't seem like enough. They couldn't possibly be enough. There weren't words enough in the entire English language…or the French…or the Spanish…

But his relieved exhale, as if he'd been holding his breath, told her that he understood. He got to his feet and picked her up effortlessly, cradling her against his chest as if she were the most precious thing in the world. She could feel his strength, different from before, more powerful, but it wasn't strange or frightening. It was a natural part of him, a part of what she loved. She felt as comfortable with it as if she had known all along. It felt…right with him.

She snuggled closer and wrapped her arms around his neck, wishing that they could stay that way forever.

* * *

He didn't know why he had just done that, why he felt compelled to scoop her up and hold her to him. But it felt good and she didn't seem to mind. He made his way back over to the couch and settled down into the fuzzy blanket that was still draped across it. She lay half on top of him while he sat at one end, a reversal of their positions the night before. But she was still comforting him, still making him feel safe, making him feel loved. If her actions the previous night had soothed his wounds, those of the morning had washed them away. He was still reeling from the sheer enormity of what he had just done. He couldn't believe that he had actually told her everything, every last scrap of the secrets he kept.

It was strange to talk about it. Before his first confrontation with Eric, it hadn't been, of course. His parents had known before he had known; for a long time they were the only ones that could really understand him, in a sense. But long years had passed since the Kents had even discussed what Clark had lost. He had gotten used to not having to hide, not having to worry about hurting anyone. He had still felt responsible for the people around him, but it wasn't the same when his life was just as fragile as theirs.

There had been times when he'd felt like there was something he'd forgotten to do, times when he felt like he should have been helping more than he could, times when he couldn't stand how powerless he was. But overriding it all was the guilty pleasure he took from being able to live his life the way he wanted it lived. Playing sports, pushing himself to his limits, rather than always holding back, not having to look over his shoulder all time.

Being free.

But he still had Chloe. Whether he could dodge bullets or not, Chloe loved him. He didn't understand why, perhaps he never would, but she had passed every kind of test the universe could have devised. She loved him and he clung to that like a lifeline.

She would have questions. He knew _he_ would, if he were in her position. He owed her that much and more. So he bade her ask away and together they slowly explored the mystery of his power and the events of the night before.

"Did you ever think that maybe _he_ wanted it?"

Clark looked up and regarded her curiously. She sat cross-legged by his side, her fingers rubbing his gently where they rested in his lap. They had been talking for hours and the morning was fading, giving ground slowly to a cloudy afternoon. A light breeze drifted through the open window, smelling of rain.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if what he said is true, then there was a definite pattern in Smallville that we were missing. I mean, think about it. All the people who were affected were affected in different ways. There was no connection between them. But there _was_ a connection between their personal situations and what happened to them. Coach Walt had a temper, hence the pyrotechnics. Jodie wanted to be thin and got the ultimate diet solution. Tina had low self-esteem so she literally tried to become someone else. It makes a certain kind of sense."

"So what did Eric want?"

"Power. You know how his dad was. Something in him wanted the strength to stand up to him. It may not have even been conscious, but it was there. And just like all the others, it didn't turn out to be as advantageous as it seemed."

"It wasn't his fault."

"No," she said softly. "But it wasn't yours either. I mean, there's no evidence to suggest that you could influence the effects of the meteorites that way anyway. Eric may not have intended it, but he caused all his own problems."

She didn't understand. "But I _did_ want it," he whispered, head down.

"Is that something to be ashamed of?" He looked away from her.

"Eric couldn't handle your abilities because they're _yours_, not his. You were born to this." She smiled lightheartedly. "As your dad would say, the best people to hold power are the ones who don't want it." She paused to let him mull that over for a minute. "Now, if we're finished with this little pep talk, how about some coffee?"

He tilted his head self-consciously and laughed, as always heartened by her matter-of-fact bravado. She gave him a knowing grin in return as he rose to wash the dredges of the previous day's brew from the pot. 

Pete came in then, looking a little worse for wear, but beaming nonetheless. He still had on his tux from the night before, but it looked like it had been through a tornado.

"I had an excellent evening, thanks for asking," he proclaimed as he proprietarily examined the untouched remains of breakfast. His nose wrinkled and he went to the fridge for the ever-present and vastly more edible cold pizza. "Come to think of it, I had an excellent morning as well," he added as he picked pineapple off his meal.

Clark said nothing as he put a fresh filter in the machine. Chloe started clearing dishes off the table.

"What? Did I miss something?"

The apartment was silent as Chloe and Clark looked at each other.

_Finis_


End file.
